Joe Mulrooney

Created: 04 September 201804 September 2018

It is with sadness we announce the death of Joe Mulrooney today. He died in the hospice with Mary his wife by his side and Bernie his Niece. Joe was a retired lecturer in Biblical Studies at Heythrop College and a parishioner of Cockfosters. He was a leading light in Advent alongside his good friend Mike Hyland. Joe and Mike attended all of the European meetings of married priests. Joe died after a short illness from stomach and bowel cancer and was a devoted carer to Mary, his wife, who herself was not well. Funeral arrangements are yet to be announced. Please keep Joe and Mary in your prayers. May he rest in peace and go to his eternal reward.

Joe wrote in 2006 and still apposite to this day:

What of “celibacy” in the future? There will always be a place for the charism of the celibate life style. However, in the context of twenty first century communities, and granted the present crises, we have two choices. We can react like corporate managers or supermarket directors in the face of shortages and problems: We downsize and frantically close and amalgamate parishes, making the Eucharistic celebration more and more inaccessible. Would it not be better to have a closer look at our historical evolution and, instead of freezing the frame in the late Middle Ages, allow a different model of church to emerge? This would be to cultivate a vision for the future and perhaps apply in this context an expanded form of Paul’s dictum in Galatians: “There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, cleric and lay: for you are all one person in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28

Clerical abuse expert Richard Sipe dies

Created: 30 August 201830 August 2018

Richard Sipe, a leading expert on celibacy and clerical sexual abuse, died in California on 8 August aged 85. A former Benedictine priest and psychotherapist, he had investigated and written on the sexual abuse crisis in the Church for four decades.

In 1990 he published his landmark book, A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy. Based on interviews with 1,500 priests and others with first-hand knowledge of celibacy violations, Mr Sipe estimated that six per cent of all priests were having sex with children and young people.

He warned that sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests was a systemic problem within the Church fostered by the culture of celibacy, secrecy and hypocrisy. He suggested that only about half of the priests in the United States were at any one time practising celibacy – an estimate the Church said was exaggerated.

Accusations against McCarrick had been documented by Mr Sipe for years. He supported hundreds of survivors through counselling and as an expert witness in court cases. In a letter to Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego in 2016, he wrote: “When men in authority – cardinals, bishops, rectors, abbots, confessors, professors – are having or have had an unacknowledged-secret-active-sex life under the guise of celibacy, an atmosphere of tolerance of behaviours within the system is made operative.”

Is the priesthood becoming too ritualistic?

Created: 28 July 201828 July 2018

'The most important thing is that the church continues the reconciling work of Christ in the world.'

A senior theologian who teaches on the permanent diaconate programmes of Birmingham and Clifton dioceses has lamented the growth of “an increasingly ritualistic priesthood” which he has warned is “unhealthy”.

Dr David McLoughlin has trained young priests for the priesthood for 25 years and taught theology at Oscott College and at Newman University. He has also been a consulter to the Vatican and the Bishops Conference of England and Wales.

Speaking to The Tablet after he gave an address to the National Justice and Peace Network conference in Derbyshire, he said many of today’s seminarians “are caught up in the rituals of the sacramental process in a way that I would regard as unhealthy” because its sense of holiness was focused in a very limited way.

“I don’t know where we have gone wrong. They are all lovely guys ... But when you see a young man on Sunday in a big Roman collar with a cassock with 33 buttons and a cummerbund and he is telling people off for taking the host in their hand – what on earth is going on?

“I think for some of them, the formal elements in religion and the formal elements of priestly dress, is a sort of bolstering and an identity strengthening factor.”

Referring to the Vatican II document on priesthood, "Presbyterorum Ordinis", he said the use of the two words – presbyter and sacerdos – had resulted in two models and that the tension between the two remained unresolved.

“Some priests have settled for a much more ritualistic sacerdotal model. I think a number of our younger priests have gone in that direction because it seems to be purer and more holy.”

According to Dr McLoughlin the most important thing is that the church continues the reconciling work of Christ in the world and reconciling men and women to each other and to God.

“If there is anything gets in the way of that, we should go beyond it. So, if we have a lack of ordained ministers because we settled for celibate priests from the second millennia on, which is only true of the western half of the church not the eastern orthodox, why shouldn’t we change it? There is no profound theological reason why priests have to be celibate, it is just custom.”

He described CDF chief, Cardinal Luis Ladaria’s recent comments on the commission on women deacons as “a damage limitation job” and suggested that the Jesuit was “trying to manage expectations” and manage the conservatives. “A lot of them are in the States and they provide the central church with a lot of money,” he said.

We need the debate on Ordination

Created: 08 July 201808 July 2018

I am one of that “number of bishops” referred to by Bishop John Crowley in his admirable letter of 23 June and further challenged to reveal themselves by John Mulholland in his letter of 30 June. Your correspondents are seeking to raise the whole issue of ministerial priesthood, male or female, in today’s Church. It is clear to me that this is a debate which needs to be taken seriously.

I serve as a committee member of the Movement for Married Clergy (MMaC) and, as a committee, we have repeatedly requested that the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales should establish a commission, comprising bishops, priests, deacons and laity, so that there can be a proper and official discussion about the ordination of married men. Our repeated requests have received no substantial reply.

We are not saying that celibacy should be abolished – it is a precious gift in the life and history of the Church – but we are saying that priesthood and marriage are not mutually exclusive. Bishop John has taken the debate a step further to include the possible ordination of women. All these questions are current at various levels in the Church and proper and considered discernment needs to be made.

I, and MMaC with me, am continuing to ask that the debates, taking place informally among our people and in many of our parishes today, should become official, so that a proper discernment can be made. The matter is urgent and the diminishing number of priests is real. I have said it before and I say it again: “The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.”Crispian HollisRetired Bishop of PortsmouthMells, Somerset